What’s Your Creative DNA? A Quiz

Twyla Tharp believes that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations — they determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how we tell them. Want to understand your creative DNA? Answer these 33 questions. From The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp.

Take the following questionnaire. If even one answer tells you something new about yourself, you’re one step closer to understanding your creative DNA.

There are no right or wrong answers here. The exercise is intended for your eyes only, which means no cheating, no answers to impress other people. It’s supposed to be an honest self-appraisal of what matters to you. Anything less is a distortion. I include it here and urge you to answer quickly, instinctively. Don’t dawdle.

When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond?

When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?

When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond?

When at work, do you love the process or the result?

At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?

What is your ideal creative activity?

What is your greatest fear?

What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous questions happening?

Which of your answers would you most like to change?

What is your idea of mastery?

What is your greatest dream?

I devised this questionnaire because it forces us to go back to our origins, our earliest memories, our first causes. We change through life, but we cannot deny our sources, and this test is one way to recall those roots.

The better you know yourself, the more you will know when you are playing to your strengths and when you are sticking your neck out. Venturing out of your comfort zone may be dangerous, yet you do it anyway because our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.